Woodworking with Hand Tools

(Page 3 of 4)

Oct. 16, 2008
By Troy Griepentrog 
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Most of those tools aren’t easy to find in a local hardware store. Where could a woodworker get them?

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There’s a great revival in hand tools. If you can’t find them used or at antique stores, there are a lot of folks making them. Lie-Nielsen and Veritas (Lee Valley) are doing real well making good hand tools. When you buy these new hand tools, you’re supporting small American manufacturers. It’s a great way of being a locivore — “locitech” in this instance — localizing the economy and supporting artisans that are making these wonderful tools.

I generally work with 19th century tools. Many of those tools were made at the apogee of hand tools. Manufacturers were competing to make the best quality tools, and then power tools replaced hand tools. I like tools from that era, because they’re inexpensive and their quality is just wonderful. You could say they’re recycled tools that someone bought in 1871, and they’re still useful. I don’t know how many electric machines from 1971 are still running.

What are the best sources for historical information on woodworking and tools?

Dictionary of Tools Used in the Woodworking and Allied Trades, by R.A. Salamon. It’s kind of hard to read, but it has great information.

Mechanik Exercises by Joseph Moxon (1683). Moxon deals personably with the material, and it’s insightful.

Check with your library to find these books.

Tell us more about your new book, The Woodwright’s Guide: Working Wood with Wedge and Edge.

I tried to get at the grain that runs through all woodworking, following the process from taking an axe into the forest to cabinet making and fine furniture. The way you’re working with that wood is always a combination of wedge and edge. It’s always the blade. It’s always the grain. There’s always structure in the wood. There’s always a cutting edge or wedge action.

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